Apple Users Feel the Patch Pain

Last month, I noted that Apple's market share was growing and so would its vulnerabilities. On Thursday, Apple released one of its largest patch sets for its OS X operating system. According to the security advisory, some of the major components of the operating system affected by the patch include Safari RSS, Apple Pixlet Video, Certificate Assistant, fetch mail, folder manager, Perl, printing and Python. There were a total of 27 fixes that addressed 45 security glitches. According to Apple, security update 2009-001 affects Mac OS X 10.5.6 and Mac OS X 10.4.11. The updates can be downloaded through the Software Update pane in System Preferences or from Apple's Software Downloads Web site.

As a Windows user and a big Linux enthusiast, I can't say that I am happy that Apple released so many patches. I think it's just a sign of the times. This may, though, squelch Apple users' bragging that they have so few patches they have to apply compared to Windows users. That said, I don't see a huge rise in Apple patches/problems through the end of the year. OS X is still a fairly difficult platform to write viruses and worms for. Hackers still get way more bang for their buck by writing malware for Windows over Apple. Welcome to the real world, Mac users. Feel our pain.

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